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Bachelors: Novellas and Stories
Scarcely anyone understands the psychology of men's relationship with women―in all its complexity, ambivalence, and frequent perversity―better than the turn-of-the-century Viennese writer and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler. Like Vienna itself, birthplace of much of twentieth-century thought in art, philosophy, and psychology, Schnitzler's sensibility is profoundly modern, even postmodern. He probes and records the illusions and delusions, the dreams and desires, the split between the social self and the inner self that are characteristic of the self-alienated man of his time―and ours. In Margret Schaefer's third collection of newly translated fiction from Schnitzler, we find him focusing a clear and unforgiving eye on the minds of men who desire, fantasize about, and try to relate to women. Young or old, they are all bachelors―a young officer (Lieutenant Gustl), a socially desirable lawyer (The Murderer), a middle-aged physician (Doctor Graesler), an aging roué (Casanova's Homecoming). All are looking for women. Yet these are not love stories. Although Schnitzler's topic is relationships, his theme here as elsewhere is isolation―and the losses, fears, self-doubts, and self-absorption that make it inescapable. For no matter how much social and erotic contact the men in these tales have with women, in the end they cannot escape their own terrifying aloneness.
- GenresFiction
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2006
22 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Schnitzler
1,034 books547 followersArthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.
The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.
His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.
Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.
In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas
The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.
His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.
Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.
In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 23, 2015
Relentless, twisted, and mesmerizing. The novella "Casanova's Homecoming" is deliriously malevolent and a daring literary feat. Despite the simplicity of his prose, each page is a step further out over a precipice, each episode more depraved than the next.
I was riveted by Schnitzler's lucid, controlled, even icy narrative in each of these stories. Freud even admitted that his insight into the darker capacities of masculine desire was startling. Schnitzler's main achievement is his ability to recede, to let the anxiety of his characters run amok.
If Lionel Trilling was on to something when he said the novelist is the person who can shape their neurosis, provide neurosis with a pleasing form and thus give the reader a measure of catharsis, Schnitzler has done it in spades. In that regard, I would even call this book perfect.
Perceptive and unjudgmental, these stories return a measure of clarity to the reader. But they're not for the faint of heart. If you didn't like "Eyes Wide Shut" (based on Schnitzler's "Dream Story"), you probably won't enjoy these strange, sad, and all-too-recognizable outings.
I was riveted by Schnitzler's lucid, controlled, even icy narrative in each of these stories. Freud even admitted that his insight into the darker capacities of masculine desire was startling. Schnitzler's main achievement is his ability to recede, to let the anxiety of his characters run amok.
If Lionel Trilling was on to something when he said the novelist is the person who can shape their neurosis, provide neurosis with a pleasing form and thus give the reader a measure of catharsis, Schnitzler has done it in spades. In that regard, I would even call this book perfect.
Perceptive and unjudgmental, these stories return a measure of clarity to the reader. But they're not for the faint of heart. If you didn't like "Eyes Wide Shut" (based on Schnitzler's "Dream Story"), you probably won't enjoy these strange, sad, and all-too-recognizable outings.
April 20, 2022
These are pretty interesting psychological portraits of men, especially where their pride over their sex and image is concerned. The last story was pretty touching to a degree, but quite a few of the other stories really betray a bad sense of self, riddled with paradoxes and inconsistencies. Most of the stories betray an inability of the main character to really consider women as people too -- mostly they are trophies or objects. I suppose that is a pretty good portrayal of some men's inability to consider women as people, but that made these stories really hard to read at times. Very cringe. But this is a pretty specialized topic as so many books valorize men at the expense of the female characters, so its actually pretty refreshing to see a critical take on male interactions with women, where the men are meant to be realistic portrayals rather than merely villains or foils for some other male character who is valorized.
May 23, 2017
I very much enjoyed this book. The translation is beautiful, and Schnitzler, writing 100 (or so) years ago, carefully discusses the driving forces of our lives: jealousy, greed, lust, sex, love, violence.
"I write of love and death; what other subjects are there?"
One of the novellas (Lieutenant Gustl) is written stream-of-consciousness, well-before the Beats did it, and took some getting used to. You appreciate and cheer for the different protagonists differently, but I did, ultimately, care about each of the major characters in the four novellas.
"I write of love and death; what other subjects are there?"
One of the novellas (Lieutenant Gustl) is written stream-of-consciousness, well-before the Beats did it, and took some getting used to. You appreciate and cheer for the different protagonists differently, but I did, ultimately, care about each of the major characters in the four novellas.
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October 26, 2025Shorts from one of turn of the century Vienna's many insightful psychoanalytical authors. There's one in here which is the stream-of-consciousness of an unlikable anti-Semitic officer who experiences a devastating social shock that's particularly excellent.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews